Here is where I will upload all pre-production and post-production work for my music video - created for my A2 media course

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Friday, 8 April 2011

Editing Diary (drumming shots)

Editing the drumming footage and creative decisions

I was having second thoughts when editing my drumming footage. Though I did take extra care considering the mise-en-scene in my lounge, when looking at the footage properly in Premier Pro, I realised that the lounge setting was not exactly working. The reason why I shot the footage in my lounge was to give it an amateur feel, as I was trying to make something which my audience could relate to. From the various music videos I have looked at, I just liked the idea of having people lip syncing and ‘rocking out’ in domestic environments as I am quite certain that any audience member will watch the video and then reminisce about a time they too ‘rocked out’ or had a dance in their lounge or kitchen.

However, it simply was not working for the genre of my music video. I realised that if I really wanted to coin the 80s style, I needed to insert bold and vibrant colours in my footage to give it an artificial appearance and move away from anything too realistic. Both my magazine cover and album digipack are full of vibrant colours; therefore it is vital that I keep my music video within this theme as well.

The threshold effect I used with my images for my digipack (partly inspired by Andy Warhol’s Pop Art) worked really well, so I thought inserting a similar effect for my footage would be good and appropriate. So after experimenting with the various video effects on Premier Pro, I finally achieved the effect, this is how I did it….

I went to 'Video Effects,' then stylize

There were a number of different effects I could choose from but 'Threshold' was the one I wanted. When I set the theshold effect upon the video clip, this is the look I got...

In the 'Effects Control' panel, I set the theshold meter to about '100' which did not lose too much detail of the footage.

I then went to the 'Video Effects' panel once again, but this time I chose 'Image Control' and chose the 'Colour Replace' effect. In the 'Effects control' panel this brought up a colour grid, so I could choose the colour I wanted to make the clip. I then set the colour replace meter to 100, which gave a full blast of colour onto the video clip. I repeated this procedure to other pieces of footage as well...

I think the effect really worked and makes the mise-en-scene appear a much more artificial world. It certainly works better than the footage’s natural colours and also detracts attention away from the domestic setting.

The threshold ‘Pop Art’ effect was inspired a lot by Madonna’s 80s album, Celebration. On it, is her face coloured in with the threshold effect. Its artificial appearance is very typical of the 80s. I was also influenced by The Autumn Society’s (group of illustrators and artists) recent exhibition, ‘80s Pop Art Show. The group set up an exhibition of work reminiscent of 80s cartoons, films, games etc. The work was stunning and elements of the threshold effect were certainly used.

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Madonna's Album Celebration

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Autumn Society's 80s Pop Art Exhibition

﻿Andy Warhol’s Pop Art has been another great inspiration to me as well, particularly for my album digipack. His work is very much in the style of the threshold effect and I love how most pf his pieces includes repetition of an image, but each one in different vibrant colours. This kind of style influenced my digipack a great deal.

As well as using the threshold and colour effect with my drumming shots, I hope to use the same effects for various other pieces of footage, yet I have used the threshold effect in some still JPEG images…

I am really pleased with discovering the threshold effect on Premier Pro and I am looking forward to the completion of my music video and seeing all this colourful footage together.